The Seas Are Great but the Navy Is Small

The Obama administration says it wants 300 ships, but it is reducing the number now while promising to build more far into the future, most after a second Obama term.

In recent weeks, the Pentagon leadership has been defending the indefensible before Congress. Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently on record deploring last year's budget cuts are now claiming that the Obama administration's latest—and still lower—defense budget is adequate. Really?

Undersecretary of the Navy Robert Work, an experienced veteran, defended the president's goal of a 300-ship Navy in an interview last week with the website AOL Defense. He claimed it was equivalent to the Reagan administration's goal of a 600-ship Navy, on the grounds that newer ships are better than the ones they replace.

That is true in some cases, such as submarines. But it is not true for other ships such as the new LCS (littoral combat ship), which does not have the firepower of the older frigates. Moreover, our potential adversaries, from pirates to the Iranian Navy, have improved their ships as well.

But most important, numbers still count: The seas are great and our Navy is small. Mr. Work's statement to AOL Defense that "the United States Navy will be everywhere in the world that it has been, and it will be as much [present] as the 600-ship navy" is not persuasive.

The size of the Navy in the Reagan administration (it reached 594 ships in 1987) reflected a strategy to deter the Soviet Union's world-wide naval force. Today we face no such powerful naval adversary, but the world is just as large, and there is now greater American dependence on global trade and many more disturbers of the peace.

While we do not need 600 ships today, no naval experts believe a 300-ship Navy is large enough to guarantee freedom of the seas for American and allied trade, for supporting threatened allies, for deterring rogue states like Iran from closing vital straits, and for maintaining stability in areas like the western Pacific. For example, the bipartisan Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel led by Stephen Hadley and William Perry last year concluded that the Navy should have at least 346 vessels.

Last week, members of the House Armed Services Committee challenged the president's plan. In response to a question about whether the Navy was changing how it counts ships to prop up the size of the fleet, Mr. Work insisted that he was following the same rules for counting ships I established 30 years ago as President Reagan's secretary of the Navy. He is correct; while there are some differences, they are minor. The Navy has not fudged the numbers.

The more troubling problem is that the administration is counting ships that won't be built at all. Last year, the president's budget called for cuts of $487 billion over the next decade. Mr. Obama also supports the additional cuts growing out of the sequester that went into effect after last year's super committee failed to agree on savings in the overall budget. Unless the law is changed, this means an additional half-trillion dollars in mandatory defense reductions over the next decade—cuts that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said would be "devastating."

AP Photo/ Defense Video and Imagery Distribution System

A fighter jet approaches the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the Indian Ocean.

Naval readiness is already highly fragile. In order to meet current operational requirements, the shrunken fleet stays deployed longer and gets repaired less. There is now a serious shortage of Navy combat aircraft, and for the first time since World War II there are essentially no combat attrition reserves. But the biggest effect of budget cuts will be on naval shipbuilding.

Currently the Navy has 286 ships. In order to pay for current operations, Mr. Obama is retiring 11 modern combat ships (seven cruisers and four amphibious vessels) well before their useful life. In order to reach a 350-ship fleet in our lifetime, we will need to increase shipbuilding to an average of 15 ships every year. The latest budget the administration has advanced proposes buying just 41 ships over five years. It is anything but certain that the administration's budgets will sustain even that rate of only eight ships per year, but even if they do, the United States is headed for a Navy of 240-250 ships at best.

So how is the Obama administration getting to a 300-ship Navy? It projects a huge increase in naval shipbuilding beginning years down the road, most of which would come after a second Obama term. In other words, the administration is radically cutting the size and strength of the Navy now, while trying to avoid accountability by assuming that a future president will find the means to fix the problem in the future.

This compromises our national security. The Navy is the foundation of America's economic and political presence in the world. Other nations, like China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, are watching what we do—and on the basis of the evidence, they are undoubtedly concluding that under Mr. Obama America is declining in power and resolution. Russia and China have each embarked on ambitious and enormously expensive naval buildups with weapons designed specifically against American carriers and submarines.

Under Ronald Reagan, the U.S. increased its naval strength to the point that it was a major factor in the decision of Soviet leaders to abandon the Cold War without firing a shot. The Navy under Mr. Obama is heading in the opposite direction.

This is not the fault of the senior Navy leadership, which has to operate within the limits set by the White House. During the Reagan years, those of us in leadership positions served a commander in chief who understood, completely and instinctively, the relationship between American strength and the protection of peace and freedom in an unstable world. Current Pentagon leaders do not have that advantage. And that is a compelling reason why a change at the top is vital for the future safety of the American people.

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Thursday, April 26, 2012

The Seas Are Great but the Navy Is Small

The Obama administration says it wants 300 ships, but it is reducing the number now while promising to build more far into the future, most after a second Obama term.

In recent weeks, the Pentagon leadership has been defending the indefensible before Congress. Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently on record deploring last year's budget cuts are now claiming that the Obama administration's latest—and still lower—defense budget is adequate. Really?

Undersecretary of the Navy Robert Work, an experienced veteran, defended the president's goal of a 300-ship Navy in an interview last week with the website AOL Defense. He claimed it was equivalent to the Reagan administration's goal of a 600-ship Navy, on the grounds that newer ships are better than the ones they replace.

That is true in some cases, such as submarines. But it is not true for other ships such as the new LCS (littoral combat ship), which does not have the firepower of the older frigates. Moreover, our potential adversaries, from pirates to the Iranian Navy, have improved their ships as well.

But most important, numbers still count: The seas are great and our Navy is small. Mr. Work's statement to AOL Defense that "the United States Navy will be everywhere in the world that it has been, and it will be as much [present] as the 600-ship navy" is not persuasive.

The size of the Navy in the Reagan administration (it reached 594 ships in 1987) reflected a strategy to deter the Soviet Union's world-wide naval force. Today we face no such powerful naval adversary, but the world is just as large, and there is now greater American dependence on global trade and many more disturbers of the peace.

While we do not need 600 ships today, no naval experts believe a 300-ship Navy is large enough to guarantee freedom of the seas for American and allied trade, for supporting threatened allies, for deterring rogue states like Iran from closing vital straits, and for maintaining stability in areas like the western Pacific. For example, the bipartisan Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel led by Stephen Hadley and William Perry last year concluded that the Navy should have at least 346 vessels.

Last week, members of the House Armed Services Committee challenged the president's plan. In response to a question about whether the Navy was changing how it counts ships to prop up the size of the fleet, Mr. Work insisted that he was following the same rules for counting ships I established 30 years ago as President Reagan's secretary of the Navy. He is correct; while there are some differences, they are minor. The Navy has not fudged the numbers.

The more troubling problem is that the administration is counting ships that won't be built at all. Last year, the president's budget called for cuts of $487 billion over the next decade. Mr. Obama also supports the additional cuts growing out of the sequester that went into effect after last year's super committee failed to agree on savings in the overall budget. Unless the law is changed, this means an additional half-trillion dollars in mandatory defense reductions over the next decade—cuts that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said would be "devastating."

AP Photo/ Defense Video and Imagery Distribution System

A fighter jet approaches the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the Indian Ocean.

Naval readiness is already highly fragile. In order to meet current operational requirements, the shrunken fleet stays deployed longer and gets repaired less. There is now a serious shortage of Navy combat aircraft, and for the first time since World War II there are essentially no combat attrition reserves. But the biggest effect of budget cuts will be on naval shipbuilding.

Currently the Navy has 286 ships. In order to pay for current operations, Mr. Obama is retiring 11 modern combat ships (seven cruisers and four amphibious vessels) well before their useful life. In order to reach a 350-ship fleet in our lifetime, we will need to increase shipbuilding to an average of 15 ships every year. The latest budget the administration has advanced proposes buying just 41 ships over five years. It is anything but certain that the administration's budgets will sustain even that rate of only eight ships per year, but even if they do, the United States is headed for a Navy of 240-250 ships at best.

So how is the Obama administration getting to a 300-ship Navy? It projects a huge increase in naval shipbuilding beginning years down the road, most of which would come after a second Obama term. In other words, the administration is radically cutting the size and strength of the Navy now, while trying to avoid accountability by assuming that a future president will find the means to fix the problem in the future.

This compromises our national security. The Navy is the foundation of America's economic and political presence in the world. Other nations, like China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, are watching what we do—and on the basis of the evidence, they are undoubtedly concluding that under Mr. Obama America is declining in power and resolution. Russia and China have each embarked on ambitious and enormously expensive naval buildups with weapons designed specifically against American carriers and submarines.

Under Ronald Reagan, the U.S. increased its naval strength to the point that it was a major factor in the decision of Soviet leaders to abandon the Cold War without firing a shot. The Navy under Mr. Obama is heading in the opposite direction.

This is not the fault of the senior Navy leadership, which has to operate within the limits set by the White House. During the Reagan years, those of us in leadership positions served a commander in chief who understood, completely and instinctively, the relationship between American strength and the protection of peace and freedom in an unstable world. Current Pentagon leaders do not have that advantage. And that is a compelling reason why a change at the top is vital for the future safety of the American people.